Portable high speed internet access device

ABSTRACT

The invention discloses a portable device that allows the user to access the Internet and World Wide Web. The portable device includes a modem that connects to a cellular telephone, thus the portable device connects wirelessly to the Internet. A host computer that runs a browser takes information received from the Internet and renders it onto a virtual display in its memory. This information is directed to a software which reduces the color depth of the information to a lower depth color image. This reduced image is then compressed by another software and sent to the portable device of the invention, for displaying to the user. Thus, the user views a bit map or raster image of a Web page. The portable device further comprises methods of pointing and clicking on text and images which represent links to other pages. All commands that the user enters into the portable device are sent to the host computer, which performs the commands via a browser, and sends the information back to the portable device.

[0001] “This application is a continuation in part of application Ser.No. 09/496,172 filed on Feb. 2, 2000.”

PRIOR ART

[0002] The background of the present invention includes U.S. Pat. No.5,925,103, Internet Access Device, which describes an improved Internetaccess system, vastly different from the present invention. Other priorart would include palm top computers and hand-held computers that havelimited processing power due to design restrictions. Thus, thesecomputers are much slower for accessing the Internet and World Wide Web.

[0003] The present invention enhances the host computer's processingspeed, data transfer and retrieval to and from the portable devices,with the aid of specialized embedded software in the host computer. Theresult is a cost effective Internet access solution.

SUMMARY

[0004] It is an object of the present invention to disclose a portabledevice that can access the Internet and World Wide Web, at extremely lowcosts. It is another object of the present invention to provide fastaccess to the Internet such that refreshing a web page is quick andefficient.

[0005] The principal embodiment of the present invention discloses aportable device that comprises a modem that connects to a cellulartelephone. Thus, the device has a wireless connection to the Internet. Ahost computer that runs a browser takes information received from theInternet and renders it onto a virtual display in its memory. Thisinformation is directed to software, which reduces the color depth ofthe information to a lower depth color image. This reduced image is thencompressed by another software and sent to the portable device of theinvention, for displaying to the user. Hence, the portable devicereceived the compressed image, decompresses it, stores it into memory,and displays it for view. Thus, the user views a bit map image of a Webpage.

[0006] The portable device comprises methods for pointing and clickingon text and images representing links to other Web pages. Clickingevents are sent to the host computer that performs the commands via thebrowser. The host computer then sends the required information to theportable device as a compressed image. The portable device decompressesthe image and the user views a new web page.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007] The invention is described in more detail below with respect toan illustrative embodiment shown in the accompanying drawings in which:

[0008]FIG. 1 illustrates elements in the host computer, whichcommunicates with a remote user and the device of the invention.

[0009]FIG. 2 illustrates the image to be displayed compared with thedisplayable area of a browser window.

[0010]FIG. 3 shows a typical subdivision of the image to be displayed.

[0011]FIG. 4 illustrates file formats received and sent by the hostcomputer.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

[0012] To facilitate description, any numeral identifying an element inone figure will represent the same element in any other figure.

[0013] The principal embodiment of the present invention aims to providea portable device that allows a user to access the Internet or the WorldWide Web (WWW), which is a device similar to a portable computer. It isanother aim of the present invention, to provide a method to develop acost competitive device. It is a further aim of the present invention,to increase the speed of refreshing the screen when the user clicks on alink and commands another page to be displayed.

[0014] Currently, existing portable devices such as the Palm Pilot VIIand Windows CE type devices contain an operating system, and within theoperating system a mini-browser to interpret information received fromthe WWW or Internet and then display this information on the screen.This requires a powerful microprocessor.

[0015] The principal embodiment of the present invention is disclosed inFIG. 1. A host computer 1 is depicted which is connected to theInternet, and that host computer receives information from outside inthe form of HTML or JAVA or other formats, required to generate a webpage. Running in the host computer, is a browser program 2 that takesall information received from outside and renders it onto a virtualdisplay in its memory, hence a bitmap is made out of it. When a remoteuser 3 requests to view a Web page (or electronic message, etc.) thehost computer 1 receives HTML, JAVA, or other types of information fromoutside the computer (as information may be gathered from a variety ofdifferent sources) and the browser program 2 takes all informationreceived from outside and renders it onto a virtual display in itsmemory. What is therefore rendered in the memory is a web page and thisinformation is directed to another software 4, which reduces the colordepth of the information (i.e. the entire image comprising graphics andtext) which is usually received in 24 bit color, subsequently reduced toa black and white bit map or raster image, in the preferred embodiment.Even though text may appear in black and white, the entire image may be24 bit color which is reduced to black and white. This reduced image isthen compressed entirely using a loss-less method of compression bysoftware 11, using G3 or G4 methods in the preferred embodiment. Thiscompressed image is sent through a port in the host computer 1, in thepreferred embodiment, to the cellular telephone 12 of FIG. 1, which isconnected to the portable high speed internet access device 18 of theinvention. The portable device 18, which contains a display screen 20with a transparent touch panel and related microelectronics, receivesthe compressed image, decompresses the image, stores it into internalmemory, and displays it for viewing to the user 3.

[0016] In another embodiment, the cellular phone 12 of FIG. 1 can bereplaced by a wire less modem which is connected to the portable highspeed internet access device 18 of the invention. This enables theportable device 18 to receive the compressed image, decompresses theimage, store it into internal memory, and display it for viewing by theuser 3.

[0017] In another embodiment, the cellular phone 12 of FIG. 1 can bereplaced by a LAND line or PSTN which is connected to the portable highspeed internet access device 18 of the invention. This enables theportable device 18 to receive the compressed image, decompresses theimage, store it into internal memory, and display it for viewing by theuser 3.

[0018] In another embodiment of the invention, after the browser program2 takes information received from outside and renders it onto a virtualdisplay in its memory, this information is directed to software 4,whereby the color depth of the information is reduced into a gray scaleimage. This reduced image is then compressed by software 11 and sent tothe portable high speed Internet access device 18 of the invention, fordisplaying to the user 3.

[0019] In a further embodiment of the invention, after the browserprogram 2 takes information received from outside and renders it onto avirtual display in its memory, r with floating points, and Booleanoperations, and performs address conversion. The MCU 202 comprises aninstruction fetch unit (IFU), an instruction execution unit (IEU), and acache control unit.

[0020] The instruction fetch unit fetches an instruction, buffers aninstruction deferred by the instruction execution unit, and performs anarithmetic operation with a virtual address to be used for fetching thenext instruction. The instruction is fetched from an instruction cacheof the cache control unit by the instruction fetch unit. The virtualaddress for the instruction to be fetched is transferred to theinstruction cache by way of interpretation to a physical address.

[0021] The instruction execution unit stores and searches data of a datacache provided in the cache control unit. The instruction execution unitconverts a virtual data address to a physical address adaptable to thecache control unit, which secures a loading/storing operation to beactive in a valid order of program stream. The cache control unitdetermines whether a request defined by a physical address of data isacceptable to the instruction cache or the data cache. FIG. 2illustrates an example of a data cache in the cache data unit.

[0022] The DSP coprocessor 204 comprises an execution part having atleast one arithmetic logic unit (ALU) coupled to a multiplier forexecuting a mathematically algorithm with pipe-lined. The DSPcoprocessor 204 is mainly assigned to conduct mathematical operations,processes multimedia functions such as video, audio, video capture andplay-back, telephone communication, voice identification and synthesis,and communication. Such DSP functions are invoked with micro-codedpatterns by the host processor (e.g., the CPU 110 of FIG. 1). Themicro-coded kernels comprise FIR (finite impulse response) and IIR(infinite impulse response) filters, FFTs (Fourier transforms),correlation functions, matrix multiplication, and Taylor seriesfunctions.

[0023] The correlation function among the DSP abilities includes X- andY-vectors. The X-vector is stored in the X-data cache 214 and theY-vector is stored in the Y-data cache 216. The X- and Y-data caches,214 and 216, stores predetermined data of an application program withoutpartitioning. The MCU 202 is accessible to the X-data cache 214 and theY-data cache 216 as well as the MCU data cache 212, wherein an amount ofaccessible cache available to the MCU is increased.

[0024] The external memory 160 is segmented into an MCU field 222, anX-data field 224, and a Y-data field 226. The MCU field 222 is a memoryfield accessible to/from the MCU data cache 212. The X-data field 224 isa memory field accessible to/from the X-data cache 214. The Y-data field226 is a memory field accessible to/from the Y-data cache 216.

[0025]FIG. 3 illustrates masters 120′, 122′, and 124′ (hereinafter,122′˜124′) according to embodiment of the present invention. Referringto FIG. 3, the masters 120′˜124′ comprises an MCU 302, a DSP coprocessor304, an X-data cache 312, and a Y-data cache 314. The masters 120′˜124′do not include the MCU data cache 212 of FIG. 2.

[0026] The MCU 302 performs data transmission to/from the externalmemory 160 alternatively through the X-data cache 312 and the Y-datacache 314. The external memory 160 comprises an X-data field 322, an MCUfield 323, and a Y-data field 324, which are segmented in the externalmemory 160. The DSP coprocessor 304 also performs data transmissionto/from the external memory 160 alternatively through the X-data cache312 and the Y-data cache 314. The X-data field 322, the MCU field 323,and the Y-data five blocks in random order and place each block in itscorrect location to reconstruct the image, which is stored in its memoryto be displayed to the user. Blocks may also be sent to the portabledevice in order of priority, which depends on the location of thedisplay of the remote device with respect to the web page.

[0027] The image 5, as shown in FIG. 2, contains the information thatwould normally be displayed on a single Web page. As can be seen in FIG.2, the image 5 of the web page that is rendered by the browser 2 onto avirtual display in the memory is usually larger than the virtual window6 of the browser. The entire image 5 of the web page is sent to theportable device 18, to be displayed. The window 6 of the browser 2running in the host computer 1 is set to be the same size as the displaywindow 19 of the portable device 18, because the portable device'sdisplay window is small, and most likely the web page is larger than thewindow of the browser in the host computer. The reason for setting thebrowser's window to be the same size as the portable device's window isfor formatting purposes, so that text can be formatted to comfortablyfit the size of the web page to be better displayed. In the preferredembodiment of the invention, the entire web page which is much largerthan both the browser's window and the portable device's window, isrendered onto a virtual display in memory by the browser 2 in the hostcomputer 1, the color depth reduced, and the image compressed and sentto the portable device. The portable device receives this image,decompresses it, stores it into memory and displays it to the user.

[0028] A CPU resident in the portable device 18 therefore has theability to decompress a bit map or raster image that may be larger thanthe size of the display and allow the user to traverse this bit map orraster image on the portable device. The primary method of traversingthe image is through conventional scroll bars positioned at the sides ofthe image. However, buttons or icons may also be used to scroll on theportable device, to enable the user to move the web page relative to thedisplay of the portable device. The CPU present in the portable deviceperforms all scrolling functions, even though messages are sent to thehost computer informing it of each scroll instruction. This allows thehost computer to keep a track of the location of the portable device'sdisplay screen with respect to the web page.

[0029] The host computer receives vector information or compressed datafrom outside in the form of HTML, JPEG, etc., which is displayed on aweb page. That image, in whole or parts, is recompressed and sent to theportable device. The recompressed data format sent to the portabledevice, is not necessarily in the same format as the compressed dataformat first received by the host computer, as illustrated in FIG. 4.For example, the incoming data from a Web page may be in the form ofJPEG which is decompressed and displayed on the browser 2. This data isrecompressed and sent to the portable device but can be in the form ofTIFF G4 or other formats, and not necessarily JPEG as initiallyreceived.

[0030] Another embodiment involves the host computer receiving vectorinformation such as HTML or text and then rasterizing it to bit mapformat. It can then shown in memory through the virtual browser and isrecompressed through a “loss less” method and sent to the portabledevice.

[0031] The image 5 is further divided into sections 7, 8, 9, and 10, asshown in FIG. 3. The image is divided after the bitmap or raster iscreated. The reason for the division (as will be explained later) is forthe purpose of display priority on the user's display. The image 5 isthen sent to another program 11 running on the host computer 1 (FIG. 1),which compresses the image using a loss-less compression method. Thecompression method may be group 3 or group 4, or another method. Theinformation is received by a portable device 12 that has the ability todisplay a monochrome image, in its display window 19. The information isdecompressed and displayed in the order of priority such that part ofimage 7, which substantially or completely covers the displayable area19 (FIG. 2), of the palm device is decompressed and displayed first andthen sequentially the portions 8, 9, 10 of the image are decompressedand stored in an internal memory of the portable device to be displayedlater when the user scrolls up, down, or sideways to these parts of theimage.

[0032] The resident CPU on the portable device has no ability todetermine which parts part or parts of the image, that is beingdisplayed, represent links to other Web pages etc. Thus, the browser 2(FIG. 1) renders the image in the virtual window 6 of the browser, suchthat the words that represent links on the image 5 of the web page (FIG.2) are translated to be slightly bolder. The user may therefore considertext that is bold or another color to be links.

[0033] The portable device provides the user with a pointing device.This pointing device may be a touch screen or tracking ball, etc. Theportable device also allows the user to click on specified areas. Assoon as the user clicks on part of an image, the shape of the pointerchanges from an arrow to an hourglass. This operation is performed bythe CPU of the portable device. A message is sent to the host computer,transmitting the location of the clicked down event. A program 14interprets the message and provides a virtual click down in the browser2. If the user has pressed in an area of the image that does notrepresent a link or text box, a message is dispatched to the portabledevice which immediately changes the hourglass shape of the pointer backto an arrow (in the case of a touch screen, from an hour glass tonothing). Further to this, if the user has clicked on a part of theimage which represents a link, a new Web page is extracted from theInternet or WWW, rendered onto a virtual display in memory by thebrowser 2 in the host computer 1, the color depth reduced, and the imagecompressed and sent to the portable device. The portable device receivesthis image, decompresses it, stores it into memory and displays it tothe user.

[0034] For every new web page transferred to the portable device, onlythe contents of the browser window 6 are transferred. Other items suchas the title, scroll bars, menu items, etc., are not sent to theportable device. These buttons and menu items are implemented on theportable device, and are sent once by the host computer to the portabledevice each time the device is powered on and initialized. Once theportable device receives the layout of these buttons and menu items,they are stored into memory and displayed on the screen.

[0035] In another embodiment, the layout of these buttons and menu itemsare hard coded in the memory of the portable device. Each time thedevice is powered on and initialized, these buttons and menu items areretrieved from memory and displayed on the screen, without anycommunication from the host computer. When the user clicks in a text boxor in a box in the display area into which letters or numbers must beinput, the cursor first changes into an hourglass, and a message is sentto the host computer. The host computer recognizes that the click downevent has occurred in the text box, and sends a message back to theportable device to inform the portable device to pop-up a keyboard onpart of the screen. The user then types, using the pointer, the lettersor words to be entered into the text box and presses “enter” or “go”.The keyboard then disappears and the cursor changes back to an hourglassshape (in another embodiment, the keyboard could be replaced with a realkeyboard or with an area that recognizes users' handwriting). Theinformation typed into the text box is transmitted in a message to thehost computer. The host computer enters the information into a text boxin the browser.

[0036] The user sees, after a short pause, as the image is refreshed onthe portable device, that the words, or letters or numbers have beenentered into the text box. Further to this, the host computer may alsobreak up the image such that the portion that has been charged, i.e. thetext box area, is sent first.

[0037] In another embodiment, the user can click on an image of a webpage on the screen of the portable device, and a message is sent to thehost computer whereby the browser inputs that click into the samelocation on the corresponding web page, which causes another web page tobe received from outside. This new page is rendered onto a virtualdisplay in memory by the browser 2 in the host computer 1, the colordepth reduced, the image compressed and sent to the portable device. Theportable device receives this image, decompresses it, stores it intomemory and displays it to the user.

[0038] In a preferred embodiment of the invention, when the user clickson an image of a web page on the screen of the portable device, amessage is sent to the host computer which contains information of theclick location relative to the web page, and not only information of theclick location relative to the display of the device.

[0039] In another embodiment of the invention, when the user clicks onan image of a web page on the screen of the portable device, a messageis sent to the host computer informing it of the exact click locationrelative to the display and also the location of the display relative tothe web page. This allows the host computer to deduce exactly where theclick location occured relative to the web page.

[0040] In a further embodiment of the invention, when the user clicks onan image of a web page on the screen of the portable device, a messageis sent to the host computer informing it of the exact click locationrelative to the display, but the host computer already knows where thedisplay is relative to the web page, as the previous scrolling actionwould have sent a message to the host computer informing where thedisplay has scrolled to relative to the web page. If there was noscrolling action, the host computer would know the exact location of thebrowser's window with respect to the web page, as this would have beenthe first set of compressed data sent to the portable device from thehost computer. This allows the host compter to deduce exactly where theclick location occured relative to the web page.

[0041] In another embodiment of the present invention, images are onlyrefreshed when an event occurs such as a mouse down event on a link orin a text box.

[0042] In a further embodiment only those portions of the image thatchange may be transmitted from the host computer to the portable device.Other images in the virtual browser that are continuously changing, suchas banner adverisements, may be the only other images sent to theportable computer as they changes.

[0043] In the principal embodiment, the portable device also contains amodem, which can be linked to the user's mobile telephone 12 andinformation that is communicated between the portable device and thehost computer is sent and received wirelessly through the mobiletelephone.

[0044] Furthermore, the portable device only contains enough memory tostore the current displayable page. When the user pressed a back orforward button, a message is sent to the host computer, and the hostcomputer sends the reference page. The back and foward buttons etc. maybe hard wired into the portable device, or may be part of the displayarea.

[0045] Further to this, part of the image representing buttons (andother things) on the browser may be sent as part of the compressed imageand buttons such as forward and back may be treated the same way aslinks are handled as previously described.

[0046] In another embodiment, the portable device comprises a modem thatpermits the device to connect to a cellular telephone 12 in digtalformat.

[0047] In another embodiment, the connection to the cellular telephone15 is made through an analog modem connected to an ear jack of thecellular telephone.

[0048] In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the modem isreplace by an analog modem that has the capability to be connected to alandline providing a standard 56kbps-types connection.

[0049] Further embodiments may provide connections through ISDN, cablemodems etc.

[0050] In a further embodiment, the protable device may contain a largescreen to be used in a fashion similar to a home Internet applaince.

[0051] In a further embodiment, the image transferred between the hostcomputer and the remote device (previously the portable device) may be acolor image and the compression method used may be of a JPEG or othercompression methods used for color images. A gray scale image may alsobe used to reduce bandwidth or display costs.

[0052] In a further embodiment, the device includes no screen, but onlyoutputs to be hooked to a television screen or external monitor fordisplay.

[0053] The remote device in the principal embodiment only has theability to decompass the image it receives; display the image itreceives; allow the user to scroll through the image; provide the userwith a pointing device to point and click on the image; send massagesproviding location of click down event; provide the user with a methodto input letters and numbers; send a message containing these lettersand numbers.

[0054] The principle embodiment contains no other structured orintelligent information about the image.

What is claimed:
 1. A host computer which receives information fromoutside, contains a browser which renders this information onto avirtual display in its memory, whereby a softward program reduces thecolor depth of the rendered virtual display, compresses this reducedvirtual display, which is sent to a remote device capable of receiving,decompressing, storing into memory and displaying it to a user.
 2. Ahost computer which receives information from outside, contains abrowser which renders this information onto a virtual display in itsmemory with a reduced color depth, compresses this reduced virtualdisplay, land sends it to a remote device which is capable of receiving,decompressing, storing into memory and displaying it to a user.
 3. Adevice as claimed in claims 6 or 7 such that the user can click on theimage of a web page and a message is sent to the host computer wherebythe browser inputs the click into the web page, which causes another webpage to be received from outside, rendered by the browser, the colordepth reduced and the image compressed and resent to the device fordisplaying it to a user.
 4. A device as claimed in claims 6 or 7 suchthat scrolling of the image for viewing by the user is done at thedevice.
 5. A device as claimed in claims 6 or 7 such that the user canclick on the image of a web page displayed on the device and a messageis sent to the host computer which contains information of the clicklocation relative to the web page, and not only information of the clicklocation relative to the display of the device.
 6. A device as claimedin claims 6 or 7 such that the user can click on th image of a web pagedisplayed on the device and a message is sent to the host computer whichcontains information of the click location relative to the display andalso the location of the display relative to the web page, to allow thehost computer to deduce exactly where the click location occurredrelative to the web page.
 7. A device as claimed in claims 6 or 7 suchthat the user can click on the image of a web page displayed on thedevice and a message is sent to the host computer which containsinformation of the click location relative to the display, whereby thehost computer is already provided with the display location relative tothe web page, as previous scrolling activity sent a message to the hostcomputer informing of the display location relative to the web page, toallow the host computer to deduce exactly where the click locationoccurred relative to the web page.
 8. A device as claimed in claims 6 or7 such that if allows the user to input text and numbers, which can thenbe sent to the host computer, which then sends a refreshed image back tothe device.
 9. A device as claimed in claims 6 or 7 such that the hostcomputer receives information compressed in a format in a format whichis decompressed and rendered into memory, reduced in color depth,recompressed and sent in a different format to the remote device fordisplaying it to a user.
 10. A device as claimed in claims 6 or 7 suchthat the host computer receives information from the outside and onlyinformation specific to the application is hard coded on the device, oronly sent once to the remote device, and only information that isreceived from the outside is rendered into memory, reduced in colordepth, compressed and sent to the remote device for displayed it to auser.
 11. A device as claimed in claims 6 or 7 such that informationthat is compressed and sent to the remote device is sent in blocks,whereby each block contains an identifier to identify the location ofblocks relative to the web page.
 12. A device as claimed in claims 6 or7 such that information that is compressed and sent to the remote deviceis sent in blocks, whereby blocks are sent in order of priority whichdepends on the location of the display of the remote device with respectto the web page.